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RE: Back Yard Chicken Tractor Coops
Pretty awesome design, well thought out. How many chickens can you house in the coop you show here? How often do you have to move it to allow for proper grazing? How heavy/easy is it to move?
10-12 chickens can be housed in there comfortably.
Usually we let the chickens out in the morning around 8 am and close them up at night around 7pm. They go in on their own. We have lots of foxes and forgetting to close the door has cost us. The chickens roam around during the day but if we go out of town they stay locked up and are fine for up to 4 or 5 days. If they're allowed out during the day you only need to moved it once or twice a week but if they need to be locked up continuously, it should be moved every day.
the long handles make it easy to lift the wheels and since they are positioned near the center of the coop, lifting it is more of a balancing act than actually lifting. moving it around depends on the terrain. smooth back yard can use the small wheels and don't need to be lifted very high but if your out in a bumpy field you may want larger wheels and more clearance when lifted but you don't want it lifted too high or the chickens can run out underneath. All of that can be adjusted by drilling a couple of extra holes in the wheel handles for the fulcrum bolt to run through.
the key to this design was keeping the weight down, that's why everything is framed in 2X2 or 2X4 for strength and skinned in super thin plywood for weight. A good heavy paint is very important to making the skin last as long as possible.
the unpainted wood skin was added over the wire at the bottom for a wind/snow block, pointing the window side up wind. If high winds are not an issue then you can continue the wire around the bottom under the hut.